Our research

We bring together a large team of experienced researchers from the universities of Manchester, Nottingham and Leicester, with a track record of making a difference to patient safety.

You can read about the impact of their work on our impact case studies page.

Our relationships and partnerships across the north-west and east Midlands allow us to work with diverse populations who have greater health and social needs and inequities.

This helps us to identify important patient safety risks and challenges. It also means we can use these partnerships to bring about change quickly.

We have worked alongside our Public and Community Involvement (PCIE) group, as well as health and social care staff, to design our themes.

Our programme of work aims to build on our past success and is designed to address the following strategic patient safety challenges, as set out by NHS England:

  1. Effective patient safety practices
  2. Improving organisational patient safety culture and practice
  3. The patient safety impacts of alternative service delivery models

Research themes

Our four themes are closely linked and work together to improve the safety of care for patients and those in contact with health and social care services. In particular, there is an important focus on narrowing the gap in health inequalities.

Developing safer health and care systems

Enhancing cultures of safety

Improving medication safety

Preventing suicide and self-harm

Our research strategy

PPIE group having a discussion with a nurse.

Working closely with patients, public and care providers…

to develop new patient safety interventions to improve safety across health and care systems.

Medical staff discussing an intervention.

Supporting patients, carers, service users, health and social care professionals…

to use these interventions to improve safety.

A healthcare professional analysing some statistics.

Studying the patient safety impacts…

of alternative ways of delivering care, including unexpected benefits and negative consequences of service changes.

A nurse helps an elderly patient to walk using a frame.

Ensuring that our research produces improvements…

that are affordable and feasible, and that they can improve safety throughout England.